Mia's Story

Mia was born October 12th, 2007. Lisa's water broke early at 34 weeks and she was in the hospital for 2 weeks because she didn't go into labor. During that time, they noticed a blocked intestine in Mia and determined that she should be delivered down at UCLA. So, at 36 weeks, Mia was delivered via C-section (because she was breech). We know that was a God thing because after she was born we found out her heart had not completed closing off the four chambers (an AV Canal) and a stressful delivery might not have been best for her. We also found out she didn't have an anal opening and her right nostril was blocked. Months later we would find out her skull had fused early. All of these things required surgeries. On May 1st, 2008, Mia had surgery on her skull and suffered a stroke during it. The doctors told us she would only "eat, breath, smile and laugh". People from all over had already been praying for Mia, but so many more joined in and she is truly a miracle because she continues to progress far beyond what anyone would have imagined. This is our blog to document that journey of our little girl, thank you for praying and we hope it will encourage you as much as it encourages us. God is good, all the time!

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Uh, where have I been?

Well, someone how or another I have almost missed November. I did have well meaning thoughts to actually post an update on here awhile ago, but we got busy again.

This week, I've been to LA twice already and am happy to not go back until next year for any doctor appointments for Mia. We saw her orthopaedist on Tuesday. Her OT is concerned because her left foot has been turning out more recently and she seems to be stretching her knee muscle/ligament the wrong way. Note to parents out there: Don't let your kids sit with their legs in the shape of a W. That's when their knees are in front, they are sitting on their bottom and their legs are back by their hips. Criss Cross Applesauce is the way they should always sit. We'd been lenient with her and hopefully it hasn't caused too much damage. Now we are very strict again. Bottom line is that our first step in addressing the issue is to get an insert for her shoe and hopefully that positions her foot in the correct alignment. After that, there are some casting options and surgery options, but we'd rather not go that route.

After that we had a visit to her cardiologist on Wednesday. It was time for her annual echo of her heart. She's been doing this for awhile and there hasn't been any change, really since when the surgery was done at a little over one year of age. In fact, 7 Thanksgivings ago to be exact. He basically told us that her heart looks just like a heart that was born normal. He doesn't anticipate any changes ever, but they still like to monitor them, so he felt like stretching her appointment out to every 2 years was good now. I imagine as she gets older and everything stays stable, that appointment will get stretched out even further. Praise God for gifting people with the ability to take a heart that can not function on its own and surgically help it to function as though it was born without any problems! We rely so much on science, but ultimately, we have to remember that God is the one who has gifted people with the ability to learn and perform these operations. Ultimately, God gets all the glory! Amen.

Today we are braving the theater with all of our kids. Calvin has been the only one to go to a movie in the theater so far and he didn't make it through the whole Lego movie before being scared and leaving. Today we are going to attempt the Peanuts movie. There shouldn't be anything scary and I think they will like it. As a special treat, we get to go with their cousin Joy! The kids just love spending time together and we are grateful to have them here, even though the circumstances getting them here wasn't their first choice.

The kids are getting excited about Thanksgiving. It should be a fun week for them next week.

Mia is still having seizures daily. Please be in prayer for us about wisdom for the next step. And please continue to pray that God would miraculously stop them.